GTA really set the mold for freeform gaming,and it is the game by which other "copy-cats" are compared. It truly revolutionized a particular style of gaming. However,Ample credit (and $$)has been laid at Rockstar's feet, so here's to hoping that games can be judged on their own merits from this point on. After all, Miles Davis pioneered numerous styles in Jazz and launched "copycats," but what Jazz fans appreciated was what other musicians brought to Davis's initial creation(s). So, okay, Mercenaries vehicle physics pale in comparrison. But the question is: how does it deviate? Simple: it gives us splendid arcade war! Why would a gamer be interested in the car tricks that one can pull (ala GTA) when playing this? Its WAR! When playing a war game, my motivation is to hurt the enemy before he can hurt me...and since, in this game, I owe no particular alliegence to any nation, I get to cause much hurt.The vehicles are tools o' destruction, for Pete's sake!My only want in the vehicle dept. is that they never provided a heavily armed 'copter.But, man! I sure had a blast when I got my hands on my first No. Korean tank(spent an hour in a No. Korean base blowin' stuff up-cathartic destruction indeed, great escape from the stresses of the real word).Really improved upon GTA's gun targeting system (Rockstar disappointed me so much in their not improving this aspect during Vice City's release, that I'm not buying another GTA game till the fix this).Anyway, Mercenaries' A.I. is dumbed down, but this just made my avatar feel more super-heroic!And besides, some of the missions are difficult (my record, at games completion: died 40 times and had to restart missions 38 times). The final mission was particularly challenging, which really embellished the climatic feeling. The learning curve was just steep enough to keep the game challenging while also keeping it from being frustrating. ANd the second map came just in time to rescue me from becoming bored with the game.First game I've had to play every night (into the wee hours of the morning) since Shenmue II. In closing, X-box version has better frame-rates, less slow-down than PS2 version, but PS2 version looked dang good too.

Very cool game. You can blow up almost anything, including your own base!!! Good graphics and fun missions should keep you interested for a couple months.

Just the title of the game makes it sound interesting - "Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction". Keywords: Playground of Destruction. You can blow anything up, hijack anything, and, just like in GTA, when you die you magically appear good as new at the local hospital, or Allied MASH in Mercenaries. As a long-time fan of the Grand Theft Auto series video games (I own them all on every platform), Mercenaries is my kind of game.

By the way, I am aware that everybody is comparing this game to Grand Theft Auto and I try not to follow in everybody's footsteps, but this game is so much like GTA it is not even funny. The first thing that popped into my mind when I played this game was, "Wow...this is Grand Theft Auto: Korean War." Play the game once and you'll agree.

Upon hearing the great things about it from a friend of mine in my Sociology class (what a place to hear about shoot-em-up games), I went out and rented it for my Playstation 2...I was hooked. How sweeter could it get? It was like my two favorite games, GTA and Battlefield, collided into one entity. Grand Theft Auto-style mayhem with an open-ended storyline (killer for gameplay, I might add) in a war-torn Korea. When I heard the game was released on the X-box, I had to buy it for the X-box.

Like all other well-made X-box games, this game has got superior graphics and sound. Even during explosions in dense fog (which actually looks like fog), the game does not lag a bit. It is smooth, crisp, and easy on the eyes. Hook this game up to a Dolby Digital 5.1 receiver, and you'll think you were actually in the combat. The sound in this game is great. The one thing I was very impressed with, however, were the games controls. They were easy to learn, and very easy to manage in-game.

All-in-all this game is incredible. The open-ended storyline that you can shape the way you want it each time you play the game gives it one major improvement over all the Grand Theft Auto games, but still keeps that GTA style alive in a warfare simulation. If you are a die-hard or somewhat-die-hard fan of the GTA series video games, and you're like most gamers out there who beg for intense war simulations, then this game will tickle both those fancies simultaneously. For any X-box gamer out there, this game easily is a "must add to your collection" title. You won't be disappointed.